Iraq: the case for decisive action

From: BillK (bill@wkidston.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jan 19 2003 - 07:37:00 MST


In the UK, The Sunday Observer leader column has reluctantly come round
to the view that war to remove Saddam Hussein is the "least awful"
option. The Observer is usually regarded as one of the more liberal,
leftish intellectual papers, so this is quite a noteworthy report.

http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,877841,00.html

"Military intervention in the Middle East holds many dangers. But if we
want a lasting peace it may be the only option.

- - - - - snip - - - -

Some will still argue that because the world contains other unpleasant
dictators, it would be wrong to get rid of this one. We disagree. The
recent past contains several examples of military intervention against
sovereign states where the outcome, if not ideal, has certainly been
much better in humanitarian terms than what went before: Vietnam's
removal of Pol Pot from Cambodia; Nato's Kosovo campaign, with the
subsequent indictment of Slobodan Milosevic; the removal of the Taliban
from Afghanistan.

War with Iraq may yet not come, but, conscious of the potentially
terrifying responsibility resting with the British Government, we find
ourselves supporting the current commitment to a possible use of force.
That is not because we have not agonised, as have so many of our readers
and those who demonstrated across the country yesterday, about what is
right. It is because we believe that, if Saddam does not yield, military
action may eventually be the least awful necessity for Iraq, for the
Middle East and for the world."

BillK

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